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alphadogg writes "Patent litigation between Motorola and Research In Motion is heating up, with Motorola filing a complaint with the US International Trade Commission. In the complaint, Motorola alleges that RIM engages in unfair trade practices by importing and selling products that infringe five Motorola patents. The patents cover technologies related to Wi-Fi access, application management, user interface, and power management, Motorola said. Motorola is asking the ITC to investigate RIM and bar the company from importing, marketing, and selling products in the US that use the technologies."

Within about 10 years or less, patent litigation will be the ONLY line of business left for former U.S. tech giants. All innovation will take place elsewhere, as it largely is already. You'll know this time is near once Microsoft loses their monopoly on the PC desktop, which they inevitably will.

Prophetic? I disagree. I think he's only stating what's already happened to us. The process really began back in the sixties, and has been on an accelerating curve ever since. We just aren't feeling the full effects of it yet because we've kept up the fiction that we're a good place for foreign investment (although the cracks are showing). Fact is, the nation is still running on inertia. There's a Great Collapse coming... I just don't know when. I really hope it's after I retire in peace to the island I plan to purchase after I win the lottery. Let all the stupid, shortsighted people here that truly believe that America doesn't need all those dirty machines and factories go to Hell in their own way. Ignorance is not bliss: it's the way to misery and poverty, and America is on that road.

One of our Founders, Thomas Jefferson, early in his career believed that America would best be served by remaining a largely agrarian culture, with the few manufactured goods we needed being purchased abroad. He eventually realized that that was a mistake, that we needed industry in order to maintain our ideals, indeed to maintain our freedom. He always maintained a distrust of the corporate sector (very wise in retrospect) but ultimately understood that freedom was based upon independence, and that we could not be dependent upon other nations' good will if we wished to be free.

The only way our labor will become competitive is after a collapse resets labor AND commodity costs.

Americans cannot afford to work for Chinese wages unless we reset to conditions like those of China.Some things will have to go, and that means a willful and deliberate rollback of the benefits workers are used to having, a destruction of entitlements, and social conditions that coerce people to work for prevailing wages instead of getting government handouts.

Competition means competing, it is required by inevitable and natural market forces, so position YOURSELF as best you can and Cthulhu take the hindmost. The post-WWII boom is over, the world learned how to make stuff, and America can't boast its way or shoot its way to the top of the heap. Americans are going to have to suck it up and get an old school work ethic, including willingness to suffer in return for money. Those old farts of the so-called Greatest Generation were hardened by hard times. We don't have hard time yet by comparison (note that our poor are fat as hogs and if they were any lazier they'd stop breathing), but they are coming.

Those old farts of the so-called Greatest Generation were hardened by hard times

Evolution in action, my friend, evolution in action. Great stuff if you're a fast-moving tree-climber with a high metabolic rate... not so good if you're a cold-blooded behemoth. And when the giant economic asteroid finally hits, which one do you think we will most closely resemble?

I don't think we need china like conditions and china like wages to compete. The British empire proved plenty competitive while they engaged in trade with what we would call third world nations today. What eventually took them down was the great war and the debt they incurred there; it was not the economics of their trade network.

Your argument assumes that a worker in china produces the same output as a working in the use. If it costs me $15 an hour in wages in other compensation for a US worker and $5 fo

I somewhat agree with you, except I'd consider the pivotal event to be WWII, the effects just didn't start showing up until the the sixties. My guess is that the great collapse is in progress already. I don't think it's going to be a single cataclysmic event, it'll be more like Charlie Chaplin falling off of a cliff and hitting every rock on the way down.

Currently though, we're still the world's largest manufacturer, although China is on target to surpass us within the next couple of years.

I somewhat agree with you, except I'd consider the pivotal event to be WWII

Well, the trends were in place even before that, but World War II offered the justification for a massive increase in Federal power and authority. Power which was not relinquished when the war was over. So yes, in that I will certainly agree with you. However, I was referring to the trend towards decreasing manufacturing productivity and overall standard of living (which had been steadily rising since the end of WWII.)

Prophetic? I disagree. I think he's only stating what's already happened to us.

Hmm, not to be pedantic, but the sense of foretelling the future is not the only definition of prophesy. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, most of what was considered prophesy in the Biblical sense actually concerned stuff that was happening in the present. The extent to which the future was predicted tended to just be in terms of extrapolation from the past, with an obvious emphasis on fitting this into some divine teaching

Hmm, not to be pedantic, but the sense of foretelling the future is not the only definition of prophesy

Well, you are (being pedantic that is) but it's okay since this is Slashdot and I'm used to it, and your post was informative as well. Nor am I disagreeing with you, but in the context of this thread I think foretelling the future was a reasonable interpretation.

Hmm - when I say "not to be pedantic" it doesn't mean that I'm not being pedantic, but rather that the purpose of my post is not to be pedantic. That is, I'm not being pedantic for the sake of being pedantic.

That applied to my last post. This one is posted purely for the sake of being pedantic.:) Well, and maybe a bit of humor as well...

The US has wasted the last decades on not development but trying to protect and conserve what is. A shitload of money going into the work of lawyers while R&D is cutting costs.

It's like racing - either you try to block the competition or you try to drive as fast as possible. Using lawyers and litigations is just trying to block the competition - but when you are in fourth row that only means that the leaders are leaving you behind.

The US has wasted the last decades on not development but trying to protect and conserve what is. A shitload of money going into the work of lawyers while R&D is cutting costs.

It's like racing - either you try to block the competition or you try to drive as fast as possible. Using lawyers and litigations is just trying to block the competition - but when you are in fourth row that only means that the leaders are leaving you behind.

Funny is, people started to act like this. If Motorola can't make an iPhone to race with RIM, they must have no patents and they should be evilly suing RIM as result. It is same deal on Nokia stories.

Once upon a time (5-10 years back), Motorola was releasing unmatchable technological breakthroughs, perhaps in that good management period, they actually invented things and patented them? Same goes for Nokia.

This is just a patent battle. RIM fired the first shot by accusing Motorola of violating its patents. Motorola is countering by saying "Oh, yeah, not only are you violating our patents, but you shouldn't be allowed to import your stuff until all this gets resolved".

Bottom line, they are both just posturing. In the end they will sign some sort of cross licensing agreement that will allow each other to user each other's patents and more importantly, cut everyone else out (its the startups that aren't part

I've long had the theory that raw, uncontrolled, capitalism and communism end up the same: with a monopoly, no competition and no innovation. Only difference is with communism the state controls the monopoly, with raw capitalism the monopoly controls the state.
Both rely on a submissive citizenry that can not be bothered to defend their freedom.

despite the hard conservative/liberitarian twist you are trying to put in to this, the most brutal governments that did those deeds were controlled by monopoly companies. nazis were a product of german industry, heavily backed by them to political power and afterwards. it also explains why nazi government didnt brutally and fascistically nationalize all private corporations and used them properly for war effort, and instead kept somewhat market economy, crippling german industrial production due to unused c

Your theory is correct with respect to current U.S. policy. However, read Ayn Rand's "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal" to understand why what we have in the U.S. is not "capitalism" nor a free market.

In a truly capitalist society, the government stays out of business except for enforcing contracts and copyrights. When set up correctly, business has no reason to lobby the state for favors - the state has no power to grant them. In true capitalism, business compete based on their ability to create and deliver p

In true capitalism, business compete based on their ability to create and deliver products and services, not their ability to lobby for state-enforced monopolies.

No, capitalism is about capital. The capital tries to increase itself on businesses growing maximally in the short term, and then moving to other businesses when the long term problems catch up. There's no long term growth for a single company in pure capitalism, unless that company achieves monopoly status. At it's core, capitalism is about getting maximal grown of your own capital, while staying legally safe, while still screwing others over at every opportunity. I mean, just think about all the Enron-lik

Well that is a sadly distorted view that unfortunately many of those in government and running our corporations share. Capitalism was supposed to be about individuals using their resources according to rational self interest. If companies were say run but their actual owners or even CEOs who planned to be around longer than 18mo it would be perfectly clear that not alienating the government, their customers, their workers and re-investing in product development and tooling for the future is the best path.

Capitalism was supposed to be about individuals using their resources according to rational self interest. If companies were say run but their actual owners or even CEOs who planned to be around longer than 18mo it would be perfectly clear that not alienating the government, their customers, their workers and re-investing in product development and tooling for the future is the best path.

That's the theory. It's almost as far removed from real life, as eg. communism is.

What you describe may be the best path for the people in power. For current owners, CEO etc, there often is an exit date (it may be unknown, but they know they'll exit at some point). So it's logical to optimize capital value for that date, ignoring whatever may come after that. Also, the others in similar position have the same opportunity to profit and exit, so it becomes a choice between taking the consequences while those

You're confusing raw capitalism with anarchy. Patents and copyright are definitely a part of a raw capitalist society as it is a tool for the corporation to avoid competition.
My point is that none of the extremes work. Capitalism is great, best thing since sliced bread, but it needs to be moderated by the people through government. Once you let corporations influence government via lobbying and campaign contributions you get problems.
And before I'm accused of being a leftist, the same is true for unions

Complete freedom is essentially the law of the jungle. Or no laws for the strongest one, and the laws of the strongest one, for everybody else.Which1. is exactly what this is.2. is the opposite of democracy and a fair society.

since when something that is contrary to some crowd's beliefs and views, but containing traces or amounts of truth, can be called flamebait and modded down ?

it may be true that the guy didnt provide any loooong explanations for any dimwits who may have missed on history classes, however what he says is just the butt end of a logic rationalization sequence.

there can be no democracy in a place where ideas and economic values are controlled by minority through patent systems and legitimized ownership. such an

Instead of spurring new ideas and having them spread around and serve the public good the skewed IP landscape has moved us in the opposite direction towards protectionism.

Well, in this case the question is, would those ideas have been developed as early as they were, if the developing company didn't know they could patent it? Just think how much resources companies spend on research that doesn't give any usable results.

It's quite possible that nobody would have those patented technologies RIM is using, if it weren't for the ability to patent them.

Ie. the ideas already got spurred and spread around thanks to patents, but RIM just doesn't want to chip in and actually pay for t

First, let me say I'm probably the most jingoistic dyed in the wool American you will ever come across. I'm so bad, I get a surge of adrenalin when I see a Canadian plate on one of the highways I pay taxes to help fund.

You do realize don't you that Canadians pump a lot of money into the American economy through free trade and tourism don't you? Directly or indirectly, those taxes you pay come from money earned because of tourism or cross border trade. If your job is not directly related to tourism or cross border trade, it is indirectly affected by it.

You should consider those highways, especially ones going north to south as capital investments which facilitate the movement of people and capital not only between states

Since patents aren't specific to any company, this means Motorola thinks all imports incorporating "Wi-Fi access, application management, user interface, or power management" should be subject to a veto by them.

Soon, RIM will countersue Motorolla.All asking to have their competitiors import of new phones banned.All we need is for Sony/Erricson, HTC & Google to start participating in this legal suitfest.

Very soon, the price of phones in the US will rocket due to limited supply.Then after a while, all the companies concerned stop selling phones due to rocketing legal costs. The US mobile phone system starts to inwardly implode under the weight of the collective l